Adelaide Hall, who was taught to sing by her father, worked in black revues from the chorus of the Broadway musicalShuffle Along (1921) to Blackbirds of 1928, with the song “I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby”.

Hall lived in Europe where opportunities for black performers were more available, after the Blackbirds tour of Europe. She had a radio show and appeared on stage and in films and nightclubs. She made her last recording at age 90 in 1991.

Lionel Hampton was a jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. He said of Benny Goodman, “As far as I'm concerned, what he did in those days — and they were hard days in 1937 — made it possible for Negroes to have their chance in baseball and other fields.”

FYI ~ the vibraphone is a percussion instrument, similar to a zylophone, marimba, and glockenspiel.

Composer and musician William Christopher Handy is widely known as the “Father of the Blues”. Handy managed to learn music through guitar, organ and cornet, even though his father, a minister, thought musical instruments were the work of the devil.

His St. Louis Blues was published in 1912, and is credited as inspiration for the foxtrot dance by Vernon and Irene Castle.

Handy was also qualified as a teacher but the pay was so low he went back to working in the iron industry in Alabama.

Richard Berry Harrison, a noted actor, teacher and lecturer was the son of slaves who escaped to Canada on the Underground Railroad. His mother named her first born Richard after seeing Shakespeare's Richard III. Harrison's most remembered role was of “de Lawd” in more than 1,650 performances of Marc Connelly’s 1931 Pulitzer winning play, The Green Pastures.

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